Insurance Tips for Water Damage Repair

Insurance tips for Water Damage

Insurance Tips

We want to make sure you’re a well-informed consumer when it comes to insurance claims and here are a few tips that may help to manage pitfalls in insurance.

Insurance companies nationwide mitigate their loss and ultimately pay up to 20% less on claims than repair cost as reported by consumers according to consumer Reports. Careful contract engineering by insurance companies transfers the risk to insurers leaving many consumers under-insured or without coverage in many cases. It’s important to not just know what insurance you have but most especially what you don’t’ have. There is about 19% decreased customer satisfaction on filed insurance claims over $25k and a little homework can mitigate your loss.

Know your Coverage

Avoid insurance pitfalls such as high deductions unless you are skilled and disciplined in having a good emergency fund for those ‘rainy days’. 1%-5% deductibles can amount up to $5000 per $100,000 of loss, meaning huge out of pocket expenses.

Exclusions & Inclusion

Insurance exclusions and not having the proper addendum’s as well as clever insurance verbiage can be quite daunting and lead to heavy losses on the part of the insured. For example, if your roof is more than 10 to 15 years old, your insurance company may not cover it when a hail storm hits. Your insurance may not cover a serious down pour or serious sewage backup even if it covers frozen pipes and bathtub overflows and you have flood insurance. Know your coverage and use a reputable company which you can usually find on your states governments website which can be easily found with a quick internet search.

Insurance comes typically in two types, exclusive and inclusive. Inclusive coverage tells what is covered in the policy and will cover nothing else but what is listed in the policy. Exclusive coverage covers tells you all the perils that the policy does not cover but covers everything else. Exclusive coverage is easier to anticipate what you still need so be sure to ask the right questions to make sure your covered when the waters come.

Know your policy and take the time to know what is covered and most importantly, what is not.